


The Secret Origins of Bartholomew Henry Allen

by nerdgirl4life (orphan_account)



Series: Secrets Don't Always Stay Secret [2]
Category: Arrow - Fandom, Flash - Fandom, Glee
Genre: Allen is a show-off, Barry's first case, DC universe - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Glash, Glashrow, Glee Universe, Glee/Flash AU, M/M, Threesome, Warbler!Barry, Warblers Reunion, cannon character death, flarrow, he gets it from Sebastian, my second go at smut, semi-au, sorry if it sucks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-24 17:07:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4927966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/nerdgirl4life
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since he’d been a kid, Barry Allen had been running. First he was running away from bullies. Then he was running away from his life as the son of a (alleged) murderer. After that he was running after the impossible, trying to form theories as to what had really happened the night his mother was killed. But After running to Starling City to track some of that impossible, and befriending the Starling City Vigilante in the process, he was unable to keep running. He got struck by lightning and was put in a coma that looked like it would claim his life. But, miraculously, 9 long months later he woke up. And he started running all over again.</p>
<p>“My name is Barry Allen, and I am the fastest man alive.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Here, Have Some Back Story

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go! I'm so excited to be getting this out of my head. (:

Chapter 1

 

Ever since he’d woken up from his coma, Barry’s life has been full speed ahead. Being struck by lightning and becoming the Flash, it was all so new and exciting and while he longed to reveal to Iris, his long time best friend, that he was the one she was seeking clandestine meetings with on the roof of CC Jitters, he knew that Joe, his adoptive father, was right in thinking that keeping her in the dark would keep her safe.

While becoming the Flash had brought on a whole new life for Barry, he was still just as busy working to solve crime in the way he’d always done: science. As the CSI (Crime Scene Investigator) at the CCPD (Central City Police Department) he was able to be on the front lines of new investigations that could possibly need the Flash’s assistance. In that way, he was able to help in a more active capacity than he’d ever done before. 

Before becoming the Flash, Barry had worked restlessly to find things that others would deem impossible. He knew that one day he would be able to find the Man In Yellow, the one who'd been surrounded by the lightning. He knew that finding this man in the lightning was going to be one of the hardest things he would ever try to accomplish, but he also knew that his father sat wrongfully imprisoned in Iron Heights and he'd do anything he could to get justice for their family. 

When Barry’s mother was killed, Barry had been in the room. He’d seen this impossible, for a lack of a better term, ball of lightning swirling and shifting around his mother while she sat helplessly in the middle crying in fear. Once Nora had noticed that her son was standing there she’d wiped her eyes and cried out for him to run away. His father had heard the commotion and was telling him to run as well when, all of a sudden, he was 20 feet away from his house with no other way back than to run. He came up on his house only to see his father being dragged into a police cruiser. He had been so confused and worried about his mom and dad that night. 

No one believed him. Even though children are likely to tell the truth more often than adults, the therapists and lawyers determined that his mind had created the lightning to explain why he’d seen his father killing his mother. He learned quickly that nothing he said was going to make anyone believe that his father hadn’t killed his mother. He was the only person who believed that his father was innocent. So, he stopped talking about the man in the lightning. He was able to stop going to the therapists and preceded to learn everything he could about impossible things. 

Barry had always been interested in science and math but after that night, he turned to science to answer his plea for answers. He was able to go to high school early, but his success was marred by the fact that he’d discovered his interest in boys and with that came the bullying. For the first semester of high school, he tried to let their words roll off his back like his mother had told him. But before too long, physical beatings followed the mean words. After the seemingly hundredth time scrubbing ‘FAG’ off of his locker he decided to put a stop to the bullying for good. It hadn’t helped that he hadn’t been able to see his dad in a while. Going to see his dad always made him feel better. But it had been several months since he’d been allowed to see him. Several months since the one person who loved him no matter what had been able to look into his eyes and with one utterance of his nickname, “Hey there Slugger,” chase away all the pain. Barry had been put in the hospital over Christmas break and when he was deemed stable enough to go home, the first thing he did was sneak out to go visit his dad. He’d been prepared to apologize, but what he hadn’t been prepared for was to see Joe West and his dad, outside of a partition. In response to his questioning look, Joe simply said he’d been escorting Henry to see his lawyer and asked if Barry could bring him the rest of the way. He’d allowed the tears to fall and wrapped his adoptive father in a hug before saying of course, it was his civic duty to make sure that this man be allowed to see his lawyer. After watching Joe walk around the corner he’d practically jumped into his fathers embrace. It had been the first time he’d hugged his father in three years. After they were both done crying Henry righted his son and said simply, “I’m so sorry, Slugger.” 

“Why are you sorry?” He’d asked. “I’m the one who nearly ki-“ he took a breath, “I’m the one who tried to run away from my pain instead of face it. By doing things the way I did, you almost lost me. I can’t ever say sorry enough for that, dad. I’m the only one who believes that you didn’t kill her. I have to-“ Henry had cut him off and told him that he’d talked to Joe who’d talked to his Uncle Devon in Ohio. He was being given a scholarship to Dalton Academy and he would go there after the Christmas break. With tears in his eyes, Henry Allen told his son that one of the conditions was that he take his Uncle’s last name, Barry would be known as Bartholomew Smythe until he graduated and was able to choose whether or not to keep his father’s name. Barry had protested but by that point they had arrived at the room where the lawyer was waiting. Bartholomew Henry Allen went into the room; Bartholomew Smythe was the one who left. 

 

After graduating Dalton Academy at the age of 16 and being offered scholarships to nearly every college in the country, Barry chose the school that would give him two things: Proximity to Iron Heights, and a degree in Chemistry, Physics, and Theoretical Sciences. After 6 years and many sleepless nights, Barry Graduated Sum Cum Laude and at the top of his class. He had job offers at labs all across the country, but he had his sights set on Central City Police Department’s Crime Lab. At 22, he would be the youngest CSI in CCPD, hell basically any Police Crime Lab, history.


	2. First Case, First Murder, First Chance

Chapter 2

Beep. Beep. Beep.  
Beep. Beep. Beep.

CRASH*

Beep. Beep. Beep.  
Beep. Beep. Beep.

CRASH*

Of course, on his first day he’d be late. If there was anyone who had to have the worst luck of anyone, it was Bartholomew Henry Allen. After all that he’d been through, of course it would be his first day of work at the Central City Police Department that would reboot his unfortunately ingrained habit of coming late to everything. Damnit Barry. You gotta get on your game. 

As he rushed into the precinct, he saw Joe conversing with his partner over their shared desk space. Despite being extremely late, Barry walked over to where the older men sat and gave an anxious, “Hey, Joe!” to his adoptive Father.  
“Hey, Barry.” After enveloping him in a hug, Joe looked between his foster son and his partner, “I know you’ve met before, but allow me to reintroduce you.” He turned to his partner then and gestured towards Barry with a flourish of his wrist. “Detective Shirer, may I introduce Barry Allen, the bright new CSI for our distinguished department.” After glancing at his watch and adopting a teasing grin he addressed Barry once more. “Of course, if he doesn’t make it to the lab in the next 30 seconds, he’s going to be left holding the record for fastest termination being as he’s only been employed for 30 minutes.” With a quick glare to Joe and a small wave to Shirer, Barry ran towards the Crime Lab hoping that he’d be able to make it before Captain Singh. 

He made it with barely a second to spare. After a firm dressing down by his superior, the Captain told Barry about a case they were working on and gave him the statements of the witnesses and what was found at he crime scene. Tasking Barry to see if there was anything he could glean from the report, the Captain left the young man with full reign of the lab. Whether it was by design or not, the space was a perfect fit for the new CSI. He was secluded on the top floor and with enough space that given time, he’d be able to make it a crime lab worth showing off. There were several tall windows that gave him a fantastic view of Central City and the barest hint of the beach. Near the back were two rolling corkboards with retractable projector screens that could be used to display current cases and cases gone cold that might stump him. Smiling to himself, Barry Allen, Official CSI of the CCPD began his first case.

After going over every detail of the case the Captain had given him, Barry determined that there had been far too many contaminations of the crucial evidence and that someone who had a trained eye needed to be present at crime scenes before the Detectives were given access to the scene. He’d expected the subtle dig at his inexperience when he brought his meager findings to the Captain, but what he hadn’t expected was the Captain’s suggestion that he be present at crime scenes from then on. With a smile and an, “Of course, Captain Singh. I’ll be sure to do the best work that I can,” Barry was excused from the Captain’s office. 

“Bear!”

Barry looked over from where he’d been staring disbelievingly at the door to Singh’s office to see none other than his best friend. He gave her a bright smile, “Iris! What are you doing here?” The smile she gave in return was just as bright. 

“I’m here to see you on your first day, of course!” She smiled as if it should have been obvious. “Now, I know that even only working here one day you’ve probably earned twice what I will in a week, but I brought you and Dad lunch so we could all eat together.” She held up a take out bag from Big Belly Burger and Barry just chuckled at her. She knew how to make a good day even better.

“Well let’s go get your dad and we can all have lunch in my lab. There aren’t any tests I need to run right now so there’s plenty of counter space.” Iris agreed to his plan, she’d come hoping to get to see Barry surrounded by his lab equipment anyway. She’d wanted a glimpse of the incredible intellect that her best friend chose to hide from most of the world. 

As they finished lunch, Detective Shirer came looking for Joe and Barry to tell them about a crime scene the Captain wanted them to go see. Iris bid her ‘brother’ and father farewell and told them to be careful. Assuring her they would, Joe left Barry to pack a field kit and figure out what Singh wanted them to do. As this would be Barry’s first crime scene as a CSI he decided that he was going to pack his, surprisingly roomy, hard-shell briefcase with more than he’d probably need to make sure that he would be totally prepared. After spending a good 15-20 minutes making sure he had everything, Barry felt ready to go. He met Joe and Shirer at the foot of the steps outside the Precinct and asked where they were headed.

“Well last night a woman called in the middle of a 211A.” He looked at Barry to see if he understood. 

“So a woman witnessed a robbery and called 9-1-1.” Joe nodded and continued.

“She said that the perp was tall and was dressed head to toe in all black. She noticed a strange noise coming from the hall and looked out her peephole to see if it, whatever it was, was happening outside her apartment. When she looked out she saw the perp and at first thought it was her neighbor just trying to jimmy his key in the door, but as she was well aquainted with her neighbor, she realized it wasn’t him. When she got back to the door after calling 9-1-1, the perp had made it into the apartment. When the perp looked into the hall turning his head from left to right she’d recognized him and gasped. She stood there stunned because she’d been silent on the line with the cops just in case her door was not enough to keep her voice from travelling. She was right about the door not being thick enough.” Joe pulled his car up to the apartment building where the woman had been found this morning. One of the Landlord’s quirks was a surprise visit to his new tenants to make sure that their apartments weren’t in need of fixing or in need of any TLC that only he could ensure took place. He’d seen one of the doors to a vacant apartment hanging open and when he’d looked inside he found the 9-1-1 caller’s body. Before leading Barry into the apartment building Joe took Barry aside. “When we get inside, I want you to go into scientist mode. I know that Barry Allen saw the body of his murdered mother when he was 11 and that he found the body of his best friend hanging in his bedroom. But Barry Allen just became a CSI for the CCPD and is going to see a lot more dead bodies. Doing this job is going to put a strain on you, Barry. And I-“

“Joe, I’m not 11 any more. I’m not saying that I’ll ever get used to seeing a dead body, but I do know that I’m doing a job that I know I’m going to be good at and it means I’ll get to catch murders and help put them away. If that means that I have to see the worst of humanity, so be it. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to lose myself.” He gave Joe a grateful, yet determined smile and followed after Shirer to the crime scene.

 

LINE BREAK

 

“She wasn’t killed here, Joe.”

“How do you know?”

“The ground all around her body is covered in a thick layer of dust. The landlord said he’d had trouble letting this apartment. That means that unless someone has been squatting here, which in my cursory glance around the apartment I decided was very unlikely, the only sets of footprints in this apartment would be the Killer’s, the Victim’s and the landlord’s. And before you ask, I’ve already ruled out the landlord as a suspect. Now, there are two sets of prints. Joe, there should be three.” If Joe was stunned by Barry’s theory, he didn’t let it show on his face. Shirer, on the other hand had yet to be convinced.  


“Ok, kid, if she wasn’t killed here, then where? And how do you know that the landlord didn’t do it. Nothing that you just said gave me any reason to take him off my suspect list.” Barry took the dig in stride. He’d known that he was putting himself in a position to be questioned by anyone and everyone when he’d applied for the job at the CCPD. But moments like this made it worth it. He directed the detectives to where he’d clearly marked two sets of footprints. Crouching down he pointed at the first set. 

“I know that the landlord is 5’10” and after observing his gait and stride, that his feet should be about 6 cm apart.” With that he pulled his measuring tape out of his pocket and when he measured the first set of prints the length matched his hypothesis. With a satisfied smile Barry continued. “After asking the landlord to allow me to examine his shoe, I determined that these prints,” gesturing once more to the first set he’d marked, “most definitely match the landlord’s shoe. He wears a men’s 10.” Turning slightly, he gestured to the second set. “These prints are of a size 11 men’s shoe with a 7 cm distance between prints. There is no way that the landlord made these.” He stood and returned his measuring tape to his pocket before directing Shirer over to the Victim’s body. “Knowing that there are only two sets of prints makes it easy to determine when, and where each person stepped. I wore booties over my shoes when I first entered the room to ensure that I didn’t disturb the dust that would almost certainly tell us each step the Killer took while he was in the apartment.” Shirer had noticed that there were clear markers that kept the other officers from stepping in certain places and that the pathway was all around the body and that it led over toward the one window in the front room. “The path marked in yellow is the path that the landlord took upon entering and seeing a dead woman in his apartment building. Thankfully, his is a direct line not straying on the journey from the door to the body. Unfortunately, part of his path crosses with the Killer’s here,” he’d pointed to a spot about halfway from the door where the yellow and green pathways intersected, “and I can’t tell if this was the landlord pacing or if it’s the Killer.” After a moment looking again at the frustrating shoe prints Barry shook his head and continued his explanation. “Now, you asked how I know she wasn’t killed here. Well to be 100% certain I’ll have to run a few tests back in my lab, but I think I’m right on this.” He directed the detectives’ attention once more to the body. “Do you see how the Killer’s path takes him around the body in a circle? Well, it’s a clear sign that either he was pacing, or he was just simply observing his handy work. Now, we don’t know if the Killer is the same man that the Victim saw breaking into her neighbor’s apartment or if something else happened last night, but we do know that the Killer has really bad dandruff.” At this outrageous assumption Shirer rolled his eyes and asked how the hell he could tell that by some boot prints. “Simple, there’s more than just dust on this floor. Now, you and the other detectives have been walking around and disrupting the dust with all the walking, right? How would we have the prints still in tact after everyone had come through? Well, thanks to never leaving home without shrink-wrap, we have our first real clue as to the identity of the Killer. His DNA will be all over her body.” He stepped over the green path to kneel down by his markers. “I placed shrink wrap over each print so that when the time came for your examining of the premises none of the evidence would be disturbed." Looking closer, he pulled out a small magnifying glass and set it on top of one of his shrink-wrap patches that littered the floor. “See here? This is dandruff, and really bad dandruff at that. If we go to the scene of the robbery, and this man is the same as the one who killed her, then hopefully there will be evidence of dandruff at the front door of both apartments.” Shirer opened his mouth to say that he still hadn’t proved she’d been killed somewhere else, but Barry was on a roll and beat him to the punch. “Yes, I know that doesn’t prove she wasn’t killed here, but honestly, it should have been easy to tell that she wasn’t here when she died.” Joe gave him a warning glance and Barry nodded to the silent ‘stop showing off’. C’mon Allen. He’s not Tony or the guys in college. He’s your co-worker and Joe’s friend and partner. “Sorry. That was rude. Ok. Uh, Detective Shirer? Did you notice the Victim’s fingernails?”

“Her fingernails, Allen? Yea, I noticed that it looked like she’d either bitten them down to stubs, or she’d been clawing at something.” He seemed put off but willing to forgive.

“Right, and if we look in her mouth we would be able to determine whether or not she’d bitten them. But I don’t think we’ll find any of her own fingernails in her mouth. I think we’ll find slivers of wood or possibly some diatomaceous earth under her nails that will tell us exactly where she was when she died.”


End file.
